So it sounds like these guys posed as investors, schmoozed politicians, and got them on tape agreeing to do corrupt stuff. The recordings were then released to influence voters.

The thing about this is, the response to it will depend on who the politicians were. For example, if it was the "far right" politicians caught on tape, there wouldn't be the same furore about election interference. The recordings may of course be edited to be misleading.

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sigismund 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The videos weren't directly about bribing. They were more about people talking about someone else taking a bribe. Sadly all of the videos were edited, so we don't have full context.

	▲	trinix912 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I'm from Slovenia and it is very obvious what is going on behind the scenes. It's a public secret at this point that both the parties in charge (especially the people in/around Gibanje Svoboda) and the various people "from behind" take their cuts at big infrastructure projects. Just to be fair, this is not unique to the current government. We've had several similar corruption scandals throughout several governments; it was almost always related to infrastructure projects. A few days prior to this leak there was a separate one posted on Facebook (that I sadly can't find anymore; it has been covered by several media outlets here [1]), in which the former GS secretary reveals who gets what % and that they have to "set our own people to the right places, as (2023) floods cleanup is where the most money flows". It is also not a secret that the mayor of Ljubljana, Janković, is able to bypass all laws to issue building permits in exchange for a 20% "donation" to city-ran sports clubs, which are ran by his friends. This was revealed in the case of an Austrian investor and his luxury flats at Celovška cesta, Ljubljana, a few months ago. It's also plain obvious that the state media (RTV SLO) is trying hard to shift the conversation towards the origin of the leaks rather than the supposed corruption revealed in them. The practice had usually been to investigate the content first. [1] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/c5OFcRRSF6k

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refulgentis 33 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

This skips over what the article actually describes. Švarc Pipan's account isn't of politicians getting caught, it's of an entrapment operation. The fake investors "seemed to know nothing about data centers," kept pushing her toward suggesting a bribe, and paid a €500 tab in cash. She says she refused to lobby and told them she was legally barred from doing so at the time.

	▲	trinix912 4 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		There is no direct proof that Janša is linked to them, however plausible it seems. (the parent comment has been edited to remove this claim shortly after I made my comment responding to it) SOVA has only been able to confirm that an unlabeled Israeli charter landed at Brnik and that a taxi ride with two businessmen was made from the airport to the street in Ljubljana where SDS is headquartered. This could have also been any two legit businessmen, who might have come with any other flight, for any other purpose. It’s not confirmed whether they entered the SDS building either. Švarc Pipan also didn’t refuse to lobby, she just brushed it off by saying “it’s not lobbying” after bring told it indeed was, right after bragging about lobbying.